


we'll get through this

by emmaofmisthaven



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 06:41:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10691820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaofmisthaven/pseuds/emmaofmisthaven
Summary: It had taken two decades and a blown-up ship for him to understand – for Ade to become his Rosaline and Naomi to be his Juliet, as bright and mesmerizing as the sun.





	we'll get through this

When he was younger, Mother Elise made Jim read all the classics. They even had some printed copies, dog-eared pages yellowed with time, careful every time he would pick them up from the shelf. Mother Elise would sit and read with him at first, then let him read on his own when he grew old enough to be trusted with the books. They would often discuss the stories, while she was cooking dinner and he was helping. Father Dimitri would sometimes chime in, but it mostly was a Mother-Elise-and-Jim thing, as most things were growing up.

 _Don Quixote_ left the most memorable mark on his memory, but it is _Romeo and Juliet_ Jim finds himself thinking about right now. He remembers his first, visceral reaction when he read it – how come Romeo think himself in love with Juliet when he was so enamoured with Rosaline only scenes earlier?

It had taken two decades and a blown-up ship for him to understand – for Ade to become his Rosaline and Naomi to be his Juliet, as bright and mesmerizing as the sun.

He can’t even remember falling in love with Naomi, can’t point out when it happened exactly – just that one day he looked back, and asked himself how he didn’t realise sooner that she was perfect for him. That she was everything. And it is true what he told her, that his only regret would have been not to spend more time with her. They were working on the _Cant_ together for months, years, and he never even noticed her, not in the ways that matter. He’s always noticed her brilliance, her cleverness – as acting XO, he knew to rely on her. If Naomi said she could fix a thing, the thing would be fixed. If Naomi said she needed more money, or more resources, or anything to fix a thing, he would give it to her and the thing would be fixed.

He trusted her with his ship then, and he trusts her his heart now.

Even as he looks at her now, the humming of the air con stretching between them in the silence of the galley. She fixes herself some breakfast, seemingly ignoring him, but the tension in her shoulders shows she is aware of his eyes on her. Still, she doesn’t say anything, not until she sits opposite him at the table with her coffee and what may or may not look like porridge.

“Are you ready to talk now?” she asks him.

There is no accusation or underlying meaning in her tone, just a genuine question coming after hours of silence and of him lost in his own thoughts. He used his broken leg as an excuse to take so time off and away from the rest of the crew, and Naomi was compassionate enough to let him play pretend. Not anymore.

 _Whatever it is, we’ll be alright_.

He still believes his own words. Father Caesar had told him, once upon a time, that relationships are hard and need work. Even more so when you are more than two, he had laughed, but two can be quite complicated on its own. And Jim agrees with his father – relationships need work, and time, and compromises. And he wants, need to make it work with Naomi.

Because she’s it for him. She’ll always be it for him.

“I stand by what I said,” he tells her now.

She purses her lips, just a little. “But you’re still pissed.”

Jim sighs, moving in his seat just to stretch his leg a little more comfortably. His foot brushes against her ankle on her stool, and neither of them move away from the physical contact, as if needing the connection to keep going.

“I’m not, I’m just…”

“Pissed,” she finishes for him when he takes a second too long to find his words.

“Confused,” he corrects, even if the term doesn’t exactly convey what he means. Betrayed is too strong of a word, too. But perhaps something in between, like he can’t believe she would hide this from him when they make such a good team and he can’t understand why she did it in the first place, both the Fred Johnson thing and the hiding thing.

“You’d be terrible at poker,” Naomi points out before shifting in her seat. She leans with both elbows on the table, her hand moving closer to him without really reaching for his. So he does the reaching, her fingers cold against his palm. She offers him a small, tentative smile to which he responds by one of his own.

And then he sighs, shoulders dropping a little. “What if he did it?”

It’s been gnawing at him ever since Naomi told him – what if Fred Johnson did it, decided to commit a genocide of his own people. And for what? Having the upper hand over Earth and Mars? Showing them the Belt can be as powerful, if not more, because they have no problem killing their own if needed?

“We don’t know that,” she replies, too softly. Like she is battling her own demons, like it has crossed her mind more than once. He wonders if she feels about this the way he does about Eros – that none of it would have happened if he hadn’t made the first broadcast that started it all. Prax had called it a cascade, and he can see it now, the first domino that made all the other ones fall before they even had time to predict what would happen.

“We don’t not know that.” There’s a chance in three that Fred Johnson actually did do it, and they need to be prepared for the eventuality of it, mentally at the very least. But, still, Jim squeezes Naomi’s skinny fingers a little bit tighter, as to reassure her that he will be by her side, no matter what happens, no matter the consequences. If her sad smile is anything to go by, she gets the message.

Silence stretches between them again, long enough for Jim to finish his coffee and for Alex’s stupid Martian country music to start echoing through the entire ship. It is not an uncomfortable kind of silence, per se, definitely not as bad as what Jim expected out of this conversation, but there are still too many things lingering in the distance between them, too many questions he wants to ask but that would only make him sound defensive.

Instead, he chooses his words slowly, carefully, when he says, “I’m sorry I made it so you didn’t want to share it with me.”

There is pain in her big, brown eyes when she looks up at him. He hopes she is not going to start crying, because he wouldn’t know where to go from there. The way she was barely hiding her tears from him when he said his goodbyes was already his undoing, even more than the fact that he was about to die.

“You didn’t…”

“Yes, I did. I didn’t make it easy for all of you since Eros, and I’m sorry.”

She’s the one squeezing his fingers this time, before letting go. Jim is about to protest, but then she stands up and walks around the table, and before he knows it he’s moving so she can sit in his lap and press her forehead to his. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, lets the weight of her body quiet his troubled mind.

“We all have our demons,” she whispers.

Jim frowns, but otherwise doesn’t go further than that. There are things that he will not share with anyone, and he must allow her the same privilege. So instead, he nods against her forehead, and raises a hand to her neck. They don’t move, just appreciating the other’s closeness and warmth, just enjoying few moments of peace and quiet before the storm. Because a storm will come, he can sense it already. But at long as they are together, him and her and the crew, they will get through it.

“I love you,” he tells her simply, and feels her smile against his mouth before she kisses him.

They will get through everything.


End file.
